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Web Research
Deep Culture in the Public Sphere
Off Dead Center: William Appleman Williams
Social Justice in a Global Age
Civil Religion and Social Democracy
The American Institutionalist School of Economic Theory
Politics and Struggle in the New Era of Obama
Sovereign Power, Bare Life and Oikonomia
Defining Social Democracy: A Serious Option for the Current Economic Crisis
It's Not Going to Be OK
A Social Democratic Economist for Our Times: John Kenneth Galbraith
A Critique of Interest Group Liberalism
Casino Capitalism: On Presidential Blindness and Economic Catastrophe
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
Sarah Palin's Pentecostal Governance: No Codes, No Civic Oversight, No Planning
The Utopian Idea of the Free Market
Carl Schmitt Politics: Divide Americans from One Another
Finance Capital, Neo-Liberalism and Critical Institutionalism
Books, Books, and Ice-axe Books
Manifesto for a Progressive Theatre
Interpretive Ethics: The Right, The Real, and the Good
Multitude: Philosophy for the Future?
Equality of Property is the Life of a Republican Government
Neoconservatism and Revivalist Theology
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Public Scholars
It was philosophers who created the enabling context for the act of rebellion we know as the Declaration of Independence. After more than two centuries a new act of rebellion is now needed against the domination of society by both economic and governmental institutions. We need a government and economy which builds a free society. It won't happen without the courage of public scholars. Academics who are willing to write books and articles for a popular audience can be called "public scholars." Paul Krugman, an economist who writes for The New York Times, is an example. Journalist-historian Garry Wills is another. Since 1989 when Michael Harrington died there has been no scholar who has become as well-known, influential, and politically active on the left as he was. His books, especially The Other America: Poverty in the United States, created the public climate which led to the initiatives of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In fact, the success of his books is one reason conservatives have funded so many think tanks and research projects which have influenced public policy over the past decades. We believe at this website that the contribution of public scholars to the political process is critically important, now more than ever, since the issues facing the nation have become exceedingly complex, and the content of practical politics in this country has been degenerated so much by the conservative media. We want to invite scholars to actively participate in the process here. Let us know the ways you may be interested, or suggest someone who you think could be helpful here. One of the key ideas for what we are calling a New Social Democracy is a three-part conceptual schema of polity, economy, and society. That is, the primary big political debate these days occurs between those supporting either governmental or free market approaches. What is regularly missed in this mental framework is what people themselves consider most important, that is, "society," where most people want to live their lives fully and freely. So both government and economy should be evaluated on the basis of the degree to which they foster a free society. We will be trying to articulate this basic idea in various ways. Let us know what you think of it. -------- The image at top right is a poster by Ricardo Levins Morales from Northland Poster which features the art of social justice, the tools of grassroots union organizing and labor activism, and the craft of union workers. |